


Lines

by iesnoth



Category: Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer
Genre: Angst, Best Friends, Drugs, Future Fic, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Intrigue, Platonic Soulmates, character death in the past, drug selling, mention of drug use but not by the main characters, minor character OCs - Freeform, past trauma, violence on par with the books
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:55:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29437146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iesnoth/pseuds/iesnoth
Summary: It's normal to lose touch with your friends for a time, but nothing has been normal with Holly Short and Artemis Fowl. After parting under strained circumstances, the two star-crossed friends are forced together to solve a common problem. Will they fall into old rhythms, or does time fester all wounds?
Relationships: Artemis Fowl II & Holly Short, Domovoi Butler & Artemis Fowl II
Comments: 3
Kudos: 20
Collections: Artemis Fowl Big Bang 2021





	1. The Distance Between Two Points

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cover art by the lovely @asiatiques on tumblr, who was my partner for the Artemis Fowl Big Bang 2021. Thanks to her, and to @pokegeek151 for organizing it.

Holly used to like routine.

Though she broke the rules of protocol when it suited her, she’d always been disciplined with herself; getting up on time to alarms, exercising on a consistent basis, and keeping a strict budget. She preferred the reliable yet crowded public transit over her hover bike and the fickleness of Haven traffic, and she even found paperwork calming, after Lili showed her how to fill it out without being overwhelmed by jargon.

Recently, however, the schedule felt like stagnation. Outside of work she only frequented five different locations, three of which were take-out places. She still had a social life, technically: she had friends, at least, though their schedules rarely aligned. Not that she was complaining. She spent most of her life at work— a job she still loved, by the way— but even the tasks of the LEP commander had become constant and predictable. Review cases, debrief officers, attend Council meetings, go over funding, repeat.

For the first few years she skyrocketed, her high-priority victories gaining her allies in the Council and, more importantly, the support of the public. Just by making some noise, Commodore Short pushed through gender reforms in the LEP, set up community-minded neighborhood watches, and funded a convict reformation and forgiveness program. But as her new-celebrity smell faded, the Council started to dismiss Holly’s proposals with the excuses she’d heard Root grumble about: “not enough personnel”, “not enough gold.” She knew it was bound to happen: she’d seen it with her mentor after all. But she didn’t anticipate how frustrated the federal handicap would make her.

When a greenhorn Council aide challenged her understanding of Haven’s economy at a meeting, she considered having Foaly peek at the aide’s own finances and see what he and his superiors were doing off the books. 

The more her annoyance mounted, the more she found herself wondering, “What would Artemis do?” and she couldn’t call him and ask. She’d made a promise.

But she was still restless, and her discontent grew by the day. In an attempt to work off some of the tension, she donned her LEP Recon uniform for the first time in five years and put herself in charge of a sting operation.

Holly hopped over the gap from the clean, but somehow still smelly tube car to the Haven Square platform, a bounce in her step and a hot-cold buzz in her veins she hadn’t felt since her rookie years. She made it worse by accepting the coffee Lili Frond handed her upon entering the precinct: Holly justified the temporary comfort would make her more alert, not jittery.

“Are the jocks ready for take off?” the commodore asked, throwing her overcoat into her office before heading to the locker room.

“The officers are waiting for you in hangar bay six,” Lili said, her breathing labored as she tried to keep up.

Holly slowed her pace. The officers could wait an extra minute. “How’s the baby?” Her gaze flitted to her friend’s stomach. 

Lili smiled. “The same as when you asked yesterday. She’s doing great, Commodore.”

“Well, tell her to stay that way. That’s an order.” Holly handed her the now-empty coffee mug and skipped ahead of her. “As you were, Lieutenant.”

She waited for Lili to mock-salute before entering the locker room.

After gearing up at the ops center run by their new tech director, a gnome named Bertha Groman (who wasn’t as good as Foaly, obviously, but competent and actually easier to work with), Holly herded her team into the shuttle. They were on a deadline, after all.

As she gave her team the rundown of the operation, all the debriefs she’d attended flooded her mind, the golden years of Root yelling at the sprites goofing in the back and giving her an approving grunt when she did something right. She swallowed down the nostalgia as she looked into her team’s faces. Two gnomes, a pixie, four sprites, and three of them were female. The past was golden, but the future was bright.

“Alright airheads, listen up.” She used holo-gloves to bring up their mission file on a floating sphere in the center of the cabin. “Two months ago, the surface intelligence division picked up chatter about a new narcotic in the human crime underworld. It’s a new kind of hallucinogenic drug called _Illusion._ Its effects include, predictably, hallucinations, but also make the users abnormally susceptible to suggestion. One who survived the experience described it as, quote ‘Musical. Like, everyone’s voices sound like music and stuff.’”

Varied levels of surprise erupted from Holly’s audience.

The pixie raised his hand. “Commander, are you insinuating humans have found a way to duplicate _mesmer_?”

“Not duplicate, Captain O’Cavin,” Holly pulled up a breakdown of the drug’s composition. “It _is mesmer_. Or at least some magical equivalent. A dwarf operative managed to procure—“ the officers sniggered, as they knew she meant ‘steal’ “— a sample, which Groman and her techs analyzed. A few of you may know our warlocks have been experimenting with transferring magic into physical forms.” She enlarged a piece of the chemical schematic, revealing a glittering portion which could be only one thing. “It seems the humans have succeeded. Or worse, are working with a fairy who has.”

She minimized the chemical analysis and brought up a map of Amsterdam. “Our sources tell us a sale of the drug is going down at a warehouse in the East Docklands.

“O’Cavin, Runkol, and I will do recon. If the drug contact is fairy, we’ll call in you Retrieval fairies to take out the trash. If the contact is human, we’ll put a tracker on them and regroup. Clean and simple. Clear?”

“Yes, commander,” the group replied.

It was sunset when they surfaced in Noorddorp, and the fairies enjoyed the rare pleasure of watching the sky transition from vibrant orange, to pink, to violet and finally to a velvety dark blue before the three recon officers engaged their wings and flew the twenty-odd kilometers to the East Docklands.

They landed on the roof of the warehouse ten minutes before the nine o’ clock meeting, giving them time to settle into position. In her ear, she heard the gnome Runkol reciting the Danu monk calming prayer, which O’Cavin joined halfway, despite being a vocal atheist. Remembering her own first mission, Holly sympathized, and as her first active mission in years, she empathized. But she’d always had her own way of dealing with anxiety. Turning down the coms, the elf broke ranks to do a fly-over of the complex.

It was two till nine, and no criminals, human or fairy, had arrived. Was this normal? Holly had completed countless successful missions during her decades on the force, but none involved drug deals. Did drug dealers arrive late as a power play? Did they have busy schedules?

As she looked into the sky to calm her nerves, she noticed the constellation Orion. Maybe after this she could take a short leave (Frond knew, she was due) and fly over to Ireland.

 _How long has it been? s_ he wondered. _I haven’t seen the moon in three years, but it can’t have been longer than that--_

Her train of thought was interrupted when a Jaguar with blacked out windows pulled into the vacant car lot to the north of the warehouse. A blond man stepped out, wearing reflective sunglasses over his eyes and a bulky overcoat to hide an unknown arsenal. He laid a briefcase on the hood of the still-running car to light a cigarette. At the same time, a pair of headlights flared to life on the other side of the car park. From the other side of the lot, a beat-up old sedan Holly had previously thought abandoned rolled to face the Jaguar, keeping two aisles between them. A short figure got out of the clunker, but from her distance Holly couldn’t tell if they were a little human or a dwarf. The two talked for a minute, and another small person exited the sedan with their own briefcase.

Before she could activate her visuals, the first little person pulled out a comically large gun.

Holly reactivated coms. “Change in plans,” she said, initializing her shield as she jumped from the roof. “The deal, or whatever this is, is going down in the car park. Shield up and take positions at the east and south. If this gets violent we may have to get creative.”

Her subordinates didn’t question why they would intervene in some human squabble. Commodore Short’s affinity for the mud-dwellers was well-known: some said she was an advocate for life and didn’t discriminate, while others said she’d been brainwashed by Artemis Fowl. Whatever these officers believed, they still took their positions, though they side-eyed each other as they did.

The blond man was talking, his hands raised. Holly fiddled with some settings on her helmet until it was focused in on the man’s face, then enabled the lip-reading program.

“Because I prefer God to rafters,” he said, presumably to a question about why he didn’t rendezvous in the warehouse as planned. “In all seriousness, my friends, it’s in our benefit. I couldn’t protect you nearly as well in there.” He lifted his lapel with a thumb to show an inner coat pocket. “If you’ll permit me?”

The gunman nodded, and the blond reached into the pocket to reveal a GPS device, which he tossed across the breach. After allowing his contact to inspect it, he did something that startled Holly so badly she almost fell from the light pole she perched on. He looked directly at her.

“Retreat, now!” Holly yelled into the coms, catapulting herself into the night sky. 

Before she’d finished her order, a series of explosives went off in a circumference around the two cars. Not bombs with shrapnel, but ones that threw up clouds of dust. She’d seen the Bwa’ Kel use them to ferret out shielded LEP officers.

“Get out!” she repeated, circling above the rising clouds.

“I can’t see!” Runkol replied, her voice panicked even through the fog of static on coms. “Somethin’s interfering with our equipment!”

The blond man turned to the dust clouds, his free hand now brandishing a revolver. The other gunman was aiming as well; he didn't look into the cloud, but at the GPS in his hand, using it to guide his line of fire.

_D’Arvit._

“Get down and low,” she said, repeating herself a few times in case they couldn’t hear through the static. When the gunmen began firing into the fog, she could only hope they’d heard her.

 _D’Arvit, D’Arvit—_ she dive-bombed the smaller person holding the GPS.

The gunman made her when she was two meters from him and clipped her arm with a bullet, sending her wheeling off-course toward the taller man. Her shielding turned off as her healing instinct kicked in, working first on the bullet wound before moving on to the concussion she'd accrued upon hitting the pavement. She was still conscious enough to hear the blond man urge his contact to finish the deal, that “more would be on their way.”

How did this human know so much about their mode of operations? Know about them at all?

The little person looked down at the tracker and gasped--so Runkol or O’Cavin _did_ manage to get a signal to Retrieval-- then nodded to his companion. 

The humans— she could see the little peoples’ rounded ears now— seemed to forget the fairy threat for a moment as they honed in on their respective goals. The gunman aimed at the blond once again as the second little human approached with their briefcase, and the taller man with his. They swapped quickly, as if the touch of the other person’s skin would burn them.

“Check it,” the gunman told them both, though he stepped toward his comrade. The little person gasped upon lifting the lid. “Gold,” he whispered, both in awe and in question.

Her concussion now healed except for a slight case of double vision, Holly activated her wings and launched herself at the blond’s prize.

“Aurum potestas est,” the blond said.

Holly’s head snapped back as if her hair had been yanked. She was close enough to look at his face now, and ice blue eyes regarded her coldly over the rims of his glasses.

“Ar—“

Her vision filled with muzzle fire, then went black.


	2. A Boundary

Holly woke up on her back, which was a major red flag. She only woke up on her back when she was in hospital or kidnapped, and the ceiling she stared up at wasn’t the hospital’s regulation eggshell white, but a beamed ceiling with a Turkish-style lamp. She hefted herself onto her elbows.

_ How did I…  _ the memories hit her along with the headache, forcing her to lay back down and close her eyes against the light.

The car park. The ambush. And—

“D’Arvit.”

“Eloquent as ever, Commodore.”

She took a deep, shuddering breath. “Artemis.”

She opened one eye, squinting against the pain, to regard him standing in the doorway. Then she blinked and stared with both. “You’re— you’re  _ old. _ ”

The man before her was easily twice as wrinkled as when she last saw him, with more sharply defined cheekbones and bags under his eyes. He still slicked his hair back, but it was grey from the tops of his ears to the nape of his neck, and his nose now had a hawk-like quality.

He stared down it with sharp eyes and arched a perfectly groomed eyebrow, making the lines on his forehead curve. “And just as tactful.”

She tried to sit up again. “No, I didn’t—“ she winced. When the pain dulled enough for her to see straight Artemis was kneeling in front of her, inspecting under a head bandage she hadn’t realized was there. Her vision blurred again.

“Right,” he said. “It looks like your magic stores have depleted after being shot.”

She blinked away the tears.  _ That’s right.  _ “You  _ shot  _ me,” she said, more of a revelation than an accusation.

“It was either my hydrosion rounds or my associate’s live ones,” he said with a shrug. “You’re lucky they left it to me to get rid of your body.”

“It’s your fault they were able to take pot-shots at us in the first place!” Now she was accusing. “Wait. O’Cavin. Runkol. Are they—“

“Safe, and untraceable. My nano-trackers you picked up in the warehouse would have died hours ago.”

Holly’s fists flexed on her thighs. She had not missed this. She had not missed the manipulation, the lies, the helplessness; but that wasn’t the Artemis she knew. Not for decades, anyway.

“But  _ why _ , Artemis? Why endanger my people in the first place?”

He stood. “If you think they were ever in danger, you don’t know me at all. Your Retrieval back up, for example? They were never called. The blips on the GPS were drones with the nano-trackers on, to be summoned at my signal. My contact knew the first readings were authentic after you attacked— thank you for the added credence, by the way— so didn’t take much convincing on the legitimacy of the fake ones. I masterfully protected the People and simultaneously cemented myself as an ally to the enemy.”

“Congratulations,” she said snidely. “Now there are two  _ criminal  _ humans out there who know about fairies.”

“Not fairies, special ops,” Artemis corrected.

Holly was unimpressed. “Was me getting shot part of the plan?”

Artemis, who had been smirking, sobered. He crouched before her again, meeting her eyes. “No, but I’m going to remedy that. I procured an acorn for you this morning,” he looked down at her fists, “but I’m afraid I’ll have to carry you to the gardens to use it.”

She scoffed at the idea of Artemis carrying her anywhere, until he lifted her off the mattress with little effort. The smirk returned at her obvious surprise, and she made a mental note to punch him later.

After she restored her magic and Artemis iced his bleeding nose, she swung her legs from a human-sized chair while he prepared tea and biscuits in the kitchen. She had so many questions to ask him: the obvious “why were you at the rendezvous last night?” “why were you in disguise?” “what was in the briefcase?” But also friendly questions: “how long have you been living here?” “what are the twins up to these days?” “are you still teaching at university?”

The problem with both lines of questioning, she realized as the tea kettle whined, was she didn’t know where their rapport stood these days. So as he reappeared with the tea platter, she began with the question she was ashamed to ask.

“How long’s it been?”

His mouth quirked up in a corner, but his eyebrows were relaxed, passive. He focused on pouring. “About twelve years now.”

_ Twelve. Great Danu.  _ “Artemis, I’m sorry. I should’ve--”

“I completely understand, Commodore,” he said, still with the sad smile, still not meeting her eyes. “I was upset at first, but over the years I’ve come to agree with your decision. In theory.” He placed a tea saucer in front of her, the liquid already treated with sugar the way she liked, the cup surrounded by her favorite butter tea biscuits, which Artemis despised.

“You knew I was coming.”

Artemis took a long sip of his tea before responding. “I hoped. Apologies, the biscuits are a bit old.” He looked out the window over the rolling Irish hills.

Holly grabbed a biscuit and pulled her knees up to her chin. “So, what are you planning?”

He didn’t look at her. “There is no plan. You’ll finish your short recovery and go home. I’ll give you the briefcase I acquired to smooth things over with the Council.”

“What about the rendezvous? Why were you there? How are you involved with this?”

His head turned slowly back at her, his age granting him an air of authority she didn’t like. “It’s part of a long game I’ve been playing for months. And quite frankly, Commodore, it’s none of your business.”

She put the teacup down with a clatter. “A former enemy of the People is caught buying magic drugs? That sounds like the definition of my business.”

“You’re saying you’ll prosecute me?” His voice was level, but one eye twitched.

Holly sighed. “I don’t want to,” she admitted. “This isn’t the way I wanted to reconnect with you, Artemis.”

His stony glare softened. “I, too, pictured our reunion differently.”

She waved a biscuit. “Obviously.”

“Nothing about our relationship has been convenient.”

“It doesn’t have to be so hard.” She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table. “Let me in, Artemis. Show me what you’re planning. You can trust me-- it’s  _ me. _ ”

He regarded her for a long minute, and under the wrinkles and strong bone structure she saw the hopeful yet wary boy she once knew. Finally, Artemis downed the rest of his tea one gulp, something  _ her _ Artemis would have called irreverent. “It will be easier to show you.”

He led her past the living area, furnished with plush Victorian furniture and a stone fireplace, through the adjoining sitting room with oak pillars and a bookshelf holding his published works, to the combined library and study at the center of the house. She could tell he spent a lot of time there; the antique desk was organized with neat stacks of clutter, a cardigan splayed over the back of the armchair, and the wall space not filled with books held Artemis’s favorite art pieces.

“This place is very homey.”

“You sound surprised,” he said, standing with his hands in his pockets in the center of the room.

“I am. I dunno, I guess I thought your ego would need more room.” She smiled when he finally chuckled. “How long have you been living here?”

He looked up at the hanging Tiffany lamps, thinking. “I built the cottage about eight years ago.”

“Built?”

He gave her that vampiric grin. “Well, I had very odd specifications.” Hands still ensconced, he used one foot to push aside the corner of the Persian rug to reveal a black screen in the wood floor. He stepped on it, activating a full scan of the room.

“Dr. Artemis Fowl II,” he said clearly. “Security code 2-5-1-2-0-1.”

“Confirmed,” a computerized voice said. “And guest?”

Artemis looked over at Holly, who stammered, “Uh, Holly Short?”

The computer whirred for a moment. Holly glanced over at Artemis, who once again looked too proud of himself. “Confirmed. Welcome, Commodore.”

The floor hissed as a pneumatic panel slid back, pulling the carpet with it, to reveal a LED-lit metal staircase down into a sub-basement.

_ This is more like him. _

The basement held another, more secret library with books in glass cases, a lab sequestered behind bulletproof glass, and--

“Is that a dojo? And a firing range?” She looked up at him with a frown. “Artemis, what is going on?”

“Much has changed since we last met,” he said simply, turning away from the tatami mats of the small dojo.

“No, explain this to me.” She placed a hand on his arm. He could have pulled away, but he stayed still. She gripped his knitted sleeve. “As your friend, I want to know.”

He sighed.

“It began after you left,” he said. His tone wasn’t accusatory or matter-of-fact, but resigned. “Butler had been gone for two years by then, and I wasn’t coping well. I thought I could go on as I always had, I just had to be more careful, more clever.” He rubbed his right collarbone and winced. “I planned a heist and hired a crew. But it went wrong. We still made the score, and the traffickers we’d targeted ended up in prison, but our Muscle died protecting me, and I still ended up in critical condition.” He huffed a laugh. “Even though I barely knew Margharite-- the woman who saved me-- her death hit me hard. I felt every reckless decision I’d made afresh, every time I endangered you or,” he closed his eyes against some memory, “or Butler. If I hadn’t been so reckless in my youth, maybe now he’d--”

Holly held both his sleeves now. She tried to catch his gaze, to offer some sort of comfort, but he avoided her eyes, the heterochromatic proof of his past misadventures.

“You were right to leave when you did. I was too careless, too proud.”

“That’s not why I left,” she protested. “ _ We _ were too careless, Artemis. You always insisted on being involved, but  _ I let you _ . And I-- you were going to end up dead!”

He met her gaze now. “There are worse fates.” She couldn’t tell if the darkness in his eyes was from the shade of his eyelids or the ghosts of his thoughts, and he looked away before she could shine a light on them.

“So I vowed to do better, to make sure no one would have to protect me ever again. I learned to shoot, though I’m only a fair marksman. I also learned defensive hand-to-hand combat,” he said, ignoring her wide-eyed surprise. “I despise using it: if someone has managed to get so close, I’ve failed. But I keep keen by sparring at the country club gym every so often.”

She blinked rapidly, trying to process all the out of character information. “And you’ve been doing this for--?”

“Five years,” he said nonchalantly. “I don’t enjoy it, but I do appreciate the health benefits. I was putting on quite the stomach in my early forties.”

Most fairies would have struggled to keep up with the age algebra, but Holly knew forties was into the middle-ages for a human. She’d missed so much.

“And the smoking?” she accused.

“Wh--” he frowned, then remembered his alias at the rendezvous. “Oh, I hold something-- a cigarette, a champagne flute, or the like-- at all such meetings to give my opponent a false sense of security. They’ll lower their guard if they think your hands are full.”

Holly filed the tactic away for future use. “You’ll have to teach me more tricks,” she said, releasing his arms. “Did you just bring me down here for a tour?”

He snapped his fingers, reorienting himself. “Right. This way.”

He led her to a walled off office-come-storage space. Boxes arranged in piles filled one side of the room, while the opposite wall boasted an impressive collage of newspaper clippings, chemical readouts and other evidence, as well as a plethora of handwritten sticky-notes. Some of the papers were connected by lines of yellow string like a bulletin board in an old cop movie.

“In my advancing years, I’ve found it helps to write things down,” he explained.

Holly blinked. Was Artemis Fowl actually admitting an intellectual incompetence?

“What am I looking at?” she asked, climbing a tower of boxes to sit at his eye line.

“On the surface, the formation of a world-wide drug ring,” he pointed to an article about a woman at a club who’d jumped from a roof at the slightest provocation. “That’s what your sting was about, correct?”

Holly nodded.

“And for all appearances, and some purposes, it is. Drugs really are being shipped from an unknown location and distributed all over the globe. But who’s doing this, and why?” He waited for Holly to finish rolling her eyes at his showmanship before continuing. “I deduced the fairy connection after I intercepted the LEP analysis, which only left a motive. There’s the obvious one, money, but then another, more sinister pattern began to emerge.”

He lifted the article about the club-hopper to show another beneath, dated the day after the woman’s fatal jump. This headline read “Health Department Baffled by Death of Family in Home: is it ALIENS?”

“Really, Artemis?” Maybe his memory wasn’t the only thing fraying in his old age.

Wordlessly, he moved onto the next drug-related article, removing it to reveal another story of a mysterious death. He continued this way until every drug incident was replaced by an unsolved death in the same city, within the same week.

“And all the deaths had the same _ modus operandi, _ ” he said. He quoted from an article, “the victims seem to have fallen where they stood, life deleted from them as easily as a line of code. All authorities know about the cause of death is it must have had an epicenter, as all the occupants fell at an angle, away from the back entrance of the home.”

Artemis met Holly’s eyes, more tired after reading such a harrowing report. She stared back at him, mouth agape.

“It-it can’t,” she whispered. “What fairy in their right mind would give humans bio bomb technology? And how have we not noticed?” She jumped off the box tower to get a closer look at the wall. “Unless--” as she reached the logical conclusion, the words died in her throat.

“Unless?” Artemis prompted.

She shook her head. “It’s crazy, but for someone to manufacture a drug on this scale, get ahold of biobombs and transport them to the surface, all while evading the LEP… well, the only ones with that level of influence are--”

He cocked his head, waiting for her to finish, but her lips were pursed in a thin line.

“The Council,” he concluded.

“But it can’t!” she said, pacing a circle into the concrete floor. “The Council has led the People for millennia. Those on the Council have held the chairs for centuries. Why would they betray us now?”

Artemis stroked his chin, looking at her pensively out of the corner of his eye. “Why would the leaders of the People give their greatest enemy their greatest weapon?”

Holly strummed the taut string between two articles. “If the humans still don’t know we exist,” she posited, “they will do what they always do: attack each other.” She pulled the yarn too hard, and it detached a thumbtack from the corkboard.

“Wait. There’s no article here.”

“Not anymore,” he chuffed, picking up the slip of paper from the floor.

“No, I mean, there aren’t  _ two  _ articles.” She snatched the clipping from him. “There was a drug-related incident in Naples. Why wasn’t there a bio bomb as well?” She stepped back from the board to take it all in. “All of these incidents take place in gang hubs of the world. So--”

He nodded. “Yes?”

“So if there wasn’t a bio bomb detonation in Italy, the center of European organized crime, there has to be a reason.”

She looked over at Artemis, who had taken a sudden interest in the ceiling. “What aren’t you telling me Artemis? Why would a new crime ring only dealing with huge crime syndicates notice you?”

Artemis ran a hand down his face and sighed. “This isn’t about me.”

“But you’ve involved yourself,  _ again,” _ she objected, chasing after him as he turned away. “What if you’re wrong? What if it isn’t the crime families or gangs unloading the bombs, but someone else framing them? Then there could be a bomb set to go off in Amsterdam right now! Someone could die because you took that briefcase.”

He picked up the briefcase in question. “If someone died every time I accepted an illicit exchange, I’d be a mass murderer.”

“And you’re okay with that?” she challenged.

His nostrils flared. “Maybe I am. Maybe some have to die in order to save the many. If given the chance, should I sacrifice all the innocents spared? All the fairies?”

Holly’s nostrils flared too. “You shouldn’t have to think that way.”

His eyes widened, obviously angered by her dismissal. “Then perhaps you shouldn’t have left.”

Holly deflated, taking a few steps back as if it would somehow lessen the sting of his words.

“Holly, my apologies,” he said, his voice as soft as his downcast eyes. “I said that because I knew it would hurt you. There is no truth in it.”

She shook her head as she pinned the article back in place. “No, there is. I thought I was too busy and made excuses. I was a bad friend.” She inhaled deeply, and when she turned back to him she wore a smile. “But there’s no getting rid of me now. Until this thing with the bio bombs is over and you’re safe, I’m staying with you. Even if it takes months.”

Artemis’s own smirk returned. “Fortunately for both of us, it won’t take nearly so long.”


	3. A Standard or Expectation

Two days later, Artemis and Holly were aboard his private jet to Sicily. More specifically, to the  _ Via del Futuro  _ Ranch: the private commune of Luciano Cardines and his followers.

“Luciano Cardines, as in the ecoterrorist?” Holly had asked as she carefully reattached the legs of a mechanical crow. She sat on the floor of the living room, using the coffee table as a work station as well as a coffee holder.

“I’d omit the ‘eco’,” Artemis commented from the couch. “But yes. He’s the last piece of the puzzle, the middleman between humans and fairies.” He flipped his computer around to show an FBI profile on the man. “Francis Cardines, alias Luciano. Thirty-one years old, Luciano began his life of crime with petty theft, then graduated to dealing prescription drugs. While attending graduate school for ecology, he began setting off bombs at oil refineries. He claims it was in the name of preservation, but I think it was to usurp the throne of Dane Hugo, an aggressive eco-activist with a cult following. He only half-succeeded, but was able to take his seedlings of a cult and grow a crop, to follow the ecological theme.”

Holly rolled her eyes.

“Luciano proved to be a more successful cult leader than ecologist, known to be paranoid of newcomers and ruthless with detractors. He moved himself and his followers to a closed Sicilian estate on the dime of his donors. Two years ago the funds dried up, and the commune wasn’t making enough off their locally-sourced produce to keep up their partying lifestyle. Six months later,  _ Illusion  _ hits the market and Luciano is in the green again.”

“Definitely not a coincidence.” She set the crow upright.

Artemis tapped a few commands on his phone, and the bird obediently cawed. The Irishman grinned approvingly. “No indeed.”

“I still don’t understand why I couldn’t have flown to Sicily,” Holly pouted.

Artemis looked up from his book with a bemused smile. “You  _ are _ flying.”

She tried to kick him, but her short legs couldn’t reach across the aisle. “You know what I mean. And I  _ not _ flying.  _ You’re  _ not even flying this thing.”

“Auto-pilot has been a staple of Haven transit for centuries,” he pointed out, his gaze flitting back to the printed page.

“Sure, but our trains and buses don’t shuttle us to almost certain doom.”

“An exaggeration, I’m sure. Besides, I’d say a mediocre existence is comparable to doom.”

Holly rolled her eyes. “Now who’s exaggerating.”

Artemis smirked, but didn’t look up at her again, signalling their short spar to be over.

He’d let her win. That wasn’t something the old Artemis-- well, the Artemis she knew-- would do. She sat cross-legged in the human-sized seat and studied him, as if staring hard enough would peel back the wrinkled exterior and reveal the young man she’d once known. The one she’d left behind.

_ I was going to come back, _ she thought.  _ When things got quiet in Haven, I was going to visit. When Artemis was between projects, I was going to call. _ But as the years passed she accumulated more and more responsibilities belowground, and whenever she’d inquire after Artemis, Juliet would say he’d taken on more work. She knew he’d drop everything if she, if the People, needed help, but she couldn’t ask that of him. Not after Butler--

So she’d justified her decisions. Their friendship had always been predicated on disaster anyway. If a crisis came up and they had to work together again, she was sure they’d pick up right where they left off.

She swallowed the lump of guilt in her throat. What a naive pipedream that was. For all his knowledge of the People, he was still human. They would both do best to remember that.

Artemis glanced up at her, the wrinkles shifting to facilitate the moment. He sat up straighter when he noticed her scrutiny, but his back still hunched from years of desk work regardless of posture. The blond wig aged him down a little, but didn’t help his pallor. His eyes-- the only part of him that didn’t show his age-- were wide with mild shock.

Holly realized she must be showing some negative emotion on her face. But still, she asked, “What?”

“You shouldn’t sit cross-legged in a satin dress.”

“Really?” she faked confusion. “I thought that’s what this long cut up the side was for.”

He crossed one leg over the opposite knee. “No, that’s for running when the authorities are called.”

“If that’s the case, why am I wearing heels?”

“You’ll get rid of the heels.”

She crossed her arms. “Is that how it works?”

Artemis shrugged, feigning interest in some invisible lint on his tuxedo’s lapel. “In my experience.”

She leaned forward, about to ask what experience that could possibly be, when the plane’s onboard AI interrupted, “Be advised: we are beginning our descent. Please fasten your seatbelts.”

Holly looked over her shoulder at the cockpit as she strapped herself in. “Thank Frond that thing no longer has my voice.”

Artemis nodded. “Indeed, she is much easier to listen to.”

Holly kicked at him again, and this time his leg was within reach.

The  _ Via de Futuro  _ Ranch was a three hundred acre property outside of Corleone, and had never actually functioned as a ranch, but had been named such after an American entrepreneur bought the land fifty years prior. When his motivational speaking gigs dried up, Luciano Cardines and his followers bought the ranch and made it their base of operations. Over the past five years, they had turned the pool house into a greenhouse, installed solar panels on every roof, and tore up the ranch’s cultivated flower gardens for the sustainable vegetable variety, including large amounts of cannabis. The only part of the ranch which maintained its original luxury was the estate’s mansion, now effectively an upscale frat house for vegans. 

At fifteen minutes till eight, Artemis drove a rented electric car up the long dirt drive to the main building.

“Are you sure about this?” Holly asked. “I don’t think I’ve ever gone unshielded into a human building for an op before.”

“Though these humans likely don’t know about the People, our mysterious Councilmember does. And one doesn’t become the most powerful traitor to the People without being extremely paranoid.”

He passed her his phone, an app already pulled up on the screen. It was a map of the compound, with hundreds of red dots littered throughout.

“These are what? Cameras?” Holly expertly scanned the screen, looking for blind spots.

Artemis shook his head. “Sensors. They detect movement, down to unusual changes in air current. Perfect for finding a shielded fairy. Hence, the disguise.”

She gingerly touched her hair, which had been curled to cover her pointed ears.

“Still, this--”

“I’ve been to dozens of these underworld gatherings, I know what will stand out.” He pulled the car up to the front of the mansion, where a valet clothed in a simple tunic hurried up to take the keys.

Artemis turned to her, trying to give her a reassuring smile. He still couldn’t quite manage it. “Incidentally, you look stunning.”

Holly sighed. “If I get out of the car, will you promise not to compliment me anymore?”

His smile turned vampiric, which actually made her relieved.

_ There he is. _

“Certainly,” he said.

Clementine Bakshi, Holly’s alias for the evening, was the daughter of a gold baron in India. She and Gustav Vogel met at a yacht party, and he invited her to this event after learning of her passion for the environment. An Indian socialite should have known how to walk in heels, but Holly was finding it quite difficult on the uneven drive.

Artemis, or Mr. Vogel, held out an arm. “We should look familiar anyway,” he pointed out when she hesitated. When she was sufficiently balanced against him, they strutted past the heavily armed bouncer and into the main event.

Artemis was right: Holly didn’t stand out. She’d assumed, understandably, that a three-foot brown woman in a dark red evening gown would have drawn eyes, but one sweep of the room confirmed Cardines’s eclectic choice in associates. Holly wasn’t even the shortest person in the room. Artemis himself received more attention in the form of suspicious side-eyes from all the other suited men in attendance. In their defense, he did look intimidating. His famous piercing glare was out in full force, and he made a statement in his floral black tuxedo with maroon waistcoat and lapels. He was dressed to distress.

“I’ll get us some champagne,” he said, dropping her arm as soon as they entered the main room. His cocktail party line had a double meaning: time to get to work. As soon as Artemis left, Holly took a borrowed phone from her handbag and opened an app. To the normal observer it would look like a modernized version of Pong, but it was actually a tracker for the bio bomb’s signature.

Nothing.

Then again, that’s what she expected. They had assumed the bomb would be cloaked until it needed to be armed… and it wouldn’t be just yet.

She set a notification, put the phone back in her purse, then turned her attention to the room.

_ Just a lot of legs,  _ she thought bitterly, before climbing up one of the twin staircases on either side of the foyer, stopping about halfway up. From here she could see the layout of the party, which seemed to be contained, for now, to the front, dining, and balcony areas of the house. The guests were greeted by an open bar, where Artemis now stood. The front foyer had several pillow piles for lounging, which Cardines’s acolytes utilized and the upscale guests with their silks and starched suits avoided. They meandered into either the dining area, where tables and a dance floor were set up, or onto the balcony bisecting the two rooms and overlooking both. The balcony was dimly lit by red bulbs, giving it a sensuous feel. Holly did not want to spend more time up there than necessary. She crossed the balcony, past a circle of couches around a hookah table, to look over the other side. A man with long blond braids sat on a low dais covered in Persian rugs and cushions. He wore a rich green tunic and hemp jewelry with precious stones woven into the twine. He sat with a few men in suits, who balanced uncomfortably on the tapestry stools.

_ That must be Cardines,  _ she mused.

A woman dressed similarly to Cardines hopped onto the platform and whispered into the drug magnate’s ear. Just as Holly was cursing the absence of her equipment, she heard Artemis’s voice, recognizable even with the Dutch accent, from below.

“You don’t have to manhandle me, I’ll cooperate,” he said in perfect Italian. “What is this all about?”

Holly tripped over to the foyer side of the balcony, where other partygoers watched in buzzed bemusement as three armed men escorted Artemis through the crowd.

_ Not even five minutes in and it’s already gone bum-up.  _ She rolled her eyes before descending the stairs to follow.  _ That has to be a record. _

The guards brought Artemis before Cardines, now alone on his bohemian throne. The party guests paused in their revelry and grandstanding to crowd into the dining hall and watch the showdown. Holly, for her part, had to stand on a table to even hope to get a view.

“Gustav Vogel,” Cardines said, almost a question.

Artemis nodded. “A pleasure to meet you at last,” he said. “Though the show of dominance isn’t necessary.”

The younger man stroked his long beard, obviously unimpressed by Artemis’s nonchalance. “It isn’t? After all, you’ve proven yourself to be a dangerous man. Aren’t you the Gustav Vogel who took control of the art smuggling ring in the Netherlands? Who ransomed a Chinese dignitary’s daughter for an edge in the opiate industry? Who is connected to the assassinations of certain dictators?”

Artemis shrugged as Holly gaped. This had better be part of his cover.

“Allegedly,” Artemis said. “And none of which affect your drug empire.”

Cardines arched his back and guffawed. “An understatement! All three enterprises haven’t been heard from since you got involved.”

“They need a lot of restructuring,” Artemis replied, too nonplussed for a captive.

“Or they’re the empty facades of an empty man.” Cardines reached forward, and the men holding Artemis pushed him into the host’s outstretched hand. “You’re not Gustav Vogel! You’re not even Dutch,” He pulled the wig from Artemis’s scalp with a flourish. “ _ Artemis Fowl.” _ The name had an astounding effect. Pearls were clutched, hats were removed, some even fainted.

The captive in question, wincing since the wig had been glued on, looked over his shoulder and caught Holly’s gaze. She got the message: too soon. She jumped down from the table, roughly pushing patrons aside to get to a better vantage point, ie: a closer table.

Artemis turned his attention back to Cardines. “You’re a clever man, Signor Cardines. I should have known better. But I use many aliases when building new partnerships. If anything, my true identity makes me more of an asset.”

Cardines leaned back, crossing his arms. “Normally I’d agree. But I don’t take kindly to people double crossing me and stealing my money.”

Artemis didn’t have to pretend to be confused. “Pardon?”

Cardines tossed a small, rectangular object at Artemis’s feet. “Look familiar?”

“It’s a tracking device I gave to your short lieutenants,” Artemis narrated, partially for the benefit of Holly, who couldn’t see from her vantage point. “Though it wasn’t broken then.”

The host inspected his nail beds. “No, I imagine it broke when they were run off the road. Killed. And the gold, stolen.”

_ Well, that clinches it.  _ Holly kicked off her heels and dropped into a crouch.  _ He was right, as usual. Which means it’s all about to hit the fan. _

“I know it will sound cliche to plead my innocence,” Artemis said slowly, calmly, as the bouncers’ grips on him tightened. “But believe me, human, you don’t know what you’re dealing with.”

“‘Human?’” Cardines scoffed, annoyed. “Is that a threat?”

Artemis’s mouth curled in the way that made his opponents simultaneously angry and terrified. “It’s more of a fact.” He rotated the signet ring on his pointer finger and pressed it into his palm. The whole mansion shook slightly, shocking cries from the audience.

_ That’s my cue,  _ Holly thought with a sigh. Activating the force field in her wristwatch (an updated version of Foaly’s SafetyNet), she flipped over the heads of the spooked Mud Men, using her buzz baton on Artemis’s guards before landing neatly in front of him.

She expected Cardines to be baffled, to ask who she was, but the drug lord had his priorities: if he killed the dissenters, he didn’t need to know why they attacked him.

“Security!” he yelled, taking a handgun out of his pleather belt.

Artemis turned so he was back-to-back with Holly and crouched, activating his own SafetyNet.

“Now,” he muttered.

“Really? I still have to say it?” She grunted as the first bullet ricocheted off the force field.

“We have to force their hand,” he reminded her.

She groaned.

“And make it flashy, we only have five minutes at most.”

Spurred to reluctant action, the elf climbed onto Artemis’s shoulders, taking a sliver of pleasure in his surprised distress at her rumpling of his dress coat.

“Stay back, humans!” Holly proclaimed to the encroaching circle of armed criminals. “I’m Commodore Holly Short of the Lower Elements Police. A, uh, magical elf who uses magic. You have something that belongs to the fairies: a very powerful bomb.”

That felt very wrong.

Now Cardines lowered his weapon. “A fairy? You have got to be kidding me.”

A ping emanated from the handbag still looped around her torso: the cloaking shell had been dissolved and the bio bomb activated.

She’d never expected to think this about a bio bomb, but:  _ Finally. _

Holly vaulted off of Artemis’s back, shielding as she reached the peak of her flip. Surprised shouts arose from the crowd, followed by gunshots. The elf landed neatly on a goon’s cranium before kicking off again, skipping over the crowd like a pebble over water. The gunmen tried to follow her trajectory before being distracted by Artemis, who’d begun firing into the crowd. When his shots landed, instead of falling to the ground and bleeding out, his victims faded out of existence like a bad visual effect. This prompted real panic, especially when some who weren’t shot fell unconscious and faded away.

As the humans stampeded, Holly took refuge under a table, excavating the phone. Earlier satellite surveillance hadn’t uncovered any secret silos or vaults outside the manor; Cardines seemed to operate on the illusion of transparency with his associates, so there were no locked doors in any of the other buildings on the compound. The mansion, however, was a fortress, with no signals of any kind in or out. The safest place for the bioweapon would be there.

Sure enough, a new red blip had appeared on her pong game.

Holly sprinted across the trashed room to a side door.  _ What do you know, the leg slit does make it easier to run. _

Artemis continued to fend off the mob, one hand behind his back so the SafetyNet could cover it while he relied on his underarmor to cover his front. When he ran out of hydrosion bullets, he produced poker chip-sized wafers from an inside pocket, depressing their centers and throwing them into his attackers. Webs of electricity deployed, tazing dozens of assailants.

But still they kept coming, and Artemis soon exhausted his arsenal. The mob advanced, stripping him of the SafetyNet and forcing him to his knees.

_ This suit is officially ruined, _ he thought with regret as a cold gun muzzle pressed against his temple.

“Wait.” Cardines hopped down from the podium. He knelt in front of Artemis, his green eyes meeting the older man’s blue ones. “Explain, or die.”

Artemis shook his head. “If I explain, we’ll both die.”

Cardines’s blonde eyebrows furrowed under his headband. “What--”

Just then, an alarm blared, startling them both.

“The bombs,” the drug lord realized. “How did you find them?”

“Like I said--”

The muzzle returned, held now by Cardines as he hefted the Irishman to his feet. “I control your life now,” he hissed, “and you’re coming with me.”

Holly jumped when the alarm went off, then mentally berated herself. She’d expected as much, after frying the control panel to the safe room. Thankfully, her crude lockpicking hadn’t forced the huge safe into lockdown, but instead overloaded the hardware. The heavy metal door swung open easily and the lights fizzled to life.

“Oh no,” Holly breathed.

The safe was seven meters square, and filled from floor to ceiling with bio bombs. All of which sported red, blinking lights on their noses. The fact they hadn’t detonated yet meant they were on a timer, but if she was the target-- and they’d made sure she was-- she couldn’t have more than a minute to defuse them all.

No time to defuse. No time to evacuate all the humans still conscious. No time.

“Stop where you are!”

Holly pivoted on the spot to see Cardines holding Artemis at gunpoint in front of him.

_ And it just keeps getting better.  _ She brandished her buzz baton. “We need to leave,” she said.

“Oh, you’re never leaving here again. Not alive, anyway.”

“None of us are!” she retorted. “The bombs are active and going to blow any second. Let him go and we can all escape!”

“You’re lying!” Cardines accused. “Those bombs can only be armed on my command! Now,  _ explain _ who you are, how you knew to come here. Explain!”

Out of the corner of her eye, Holly could see the blinking lights accelerating.

“Just look--”

“Holly!” Artemis interrupted. “There’s no time.” His gaze flicked to the buzz baton, then back to her face. One shock and she’d be out.

“No,” she said, her jaw clenched. “No, I’m not leaving you to be a martyr. Not again.”

“Holly!”

“No!”

Cardines rolled his eyes. “I’ll kill both of you!” he said, turning the gun on Holly.

The motion shifted his grip on Artemis, who pushed Cardines’s gun hand upward, his own hand sliding down the arm to twist, careful to point the gun away from Holly when the criminal’s trigger finger flexed instinctively. The gun dropped from his hand and Artemis caught it with his left hand while pushing Cardines hard with his right.

Holly didn’t have time to process before Artemis recovered and pointed the gun back at her.

She threw the baton just as he squeezed the trigger.


	4. Cracks in a Facade

Artemis woke up to the sensation of grass against his neck and a throbbing in his cheek. Holly sat a few paces away, looking into a distance he couldn’t see. She was rimmed with gold in the morning light, the place on her temple where his bullet had grazed her already smoothed over.

“You haven’t healed me,” he muttered, stretching tense muscles as he pulled himself into a sitting position.

“Payback, old man,” she replied simply, not turning around.

Not trusting himself to stand just yet, he army-crawled over to where she sat. From their vantage point on the hill they could see the  _ Via de Futuro _ , now swarming with policia.

“Only half of them escaped the time stop,” she told him, still not looking at him. “I’m not going to ask you where you got the plans for that.”

“Nothing untoward, for once. Foaly gave them to me when he left the LEP.” Artemis plucked a dandelion and inspected its fuzzy seeds. “It took me the better part of two decades to recreate, and longer to condense into the bird decoys. Cuts down the time stopped considerably, but it worked for our devices.”

“And you’re sure we don’t have to worry about my confession?”

“When the time stop terminated, it released a special electromagnetic wave, of my own design,” he said, as if he were explaining checkers. “Not only will it erase all the electronic devices in the mansion, but it will have overloaded the neurons in the brain. Everything during the time stop will be blank.”

Holly looked over at him now, her eyes piercing. “That sounds dangerous, Artemis. Have you tested this?”

“My logic is completely sound,” he said sternly, ready for an argument.

Instead, she gazed back down the hill, watching the oscillating lights of the emergency vehicles. “So even if Cardines survived, there’s no guarantee he would’ve remembered anything useful.”

Artemis began picking the seeds out of the dandelion one at a time and releasing them into the breeze. “I suppose not.”

They sat in silence for a few moments, 

Finally, Holly asked, “Artemis-- what would you have done if I wasn’t here?”

“I would have managed.”

“That’s not what I meant.” She frowned at the ground. “You would have made it, right? You would have found a way to live.”

He made sure to catch her eye before replying. “I always do.”

“No you don’t. You didn’t tonight. You were ready to die in order to save me.”

“It’s what you would have done.” His tone wasn’t accusatory, but it was quiet, which was almost worse.

“Yes, but I’m an officer, it’s my duty.”

“That’s right, Commodore,” he said, raising his volume to meet hers. “If I had come here without you, I would have found a way to survive, because in a mansion full of heartless criminals, I’m on the side of the angels. But with you there, you are the greater good. And the greater good must be protected at all costs.”

“Who are you to decide who is more worthy of life?” she asked, standing. “That is  _ pride _ , Artemis!”

He dropped the dandelion and sat up. 

“We’ve died for each other before,” he pointed out, “it’s  _ friendship _ !”

“No it’s not, it’s insane!” She turned her back on him, staring at the sun until her eyes teared up. She didn’t know why this made her so upset, why her chest was so tight it hurt and she wanted him to stop looking, just stop looking at her. “I can’t have you die on my watch  _ again _ , Artemis. If, even after everything, you can’t understand that-- I can’t be around you anymore.”

Artemis didn’t reply.

Artemis manually flew the jet back to Ireland while Holly sat in the cabin.

As soon as they reached Artemis’s home she changed into and rebooted her LEP uniform. Dozens of messages flooded the visor, most from Lili and Foaly, pleading with her to respond. As she did, Artemis entered the guest room, holding the infamous briefcase.

“A boon,” he explained, holding it out to her.

She accepted it.

“Tara’s not far so I’m flying out now,” she said.

He nodded, following her as she marched through the house to the front door.

“Commodore?” He said the word so softly she almost couldn’t hear him through the helmet.

She turned her head to her shoulder to show she was listening.

“I thought you should know-- as much as I would have enjoyed your company over the past few years, it isn’t your fault I turned out this way. I, also, could have reached out to you at any time, but I was angry and stubborn. Still am, I suppose. It led me down a path of self-reliance, changed my moral code.” He smiled at her, a sad smile which didn’t show any teeth. “If you were not with me in Sicily, I would have allowed everyone in the building-- all those criminals-- to be killed by the bio bombs. You saved them, Holly.” He shrugged. “Well, most.”

She turned to face him now. “The Artemis I knew would have said violence is always inferior to logic and a good plan.”

His face was inscrutable. “That Artemis is gone.”

Holly flitted up to his level, bracing her hands on his shoulders as she left a kiss on his forehead.

“I know.”

Holly arrived back in Haven with a heavy heart and a tense spine. She almost jumped out of her skin when Mulch clapped her shoulder as she got out of the shuttle.

“Long time, officer!” he grinned. His jovial tombstone smile pulled a tired grin from her as well.

“Heya, convict,” she said, “staying out of trouble?” A stupid question.

The dwarf laughed. “I won’t answer that, it’ll ruin my mystique!” He kept pace with her as she headed to the tube station. “How’s the Mudboy?”

“He’s a Mud man, now.”

“Aw, he’ll always be a Mudboy to me.” He laughed at his own joke, then raised an eyebrow when she didn’t tease him for it. “Unless you mean, he’s a  _ Mud man. _ ”

Holly sighed, sitting on one of the benches on the station floor instead of boarding the train. “He’s still a genius, and still trying to do good, I think. But he has more-- morally ambiguous methods now.”

“You mean a somewhat decent human who lives with other humans who are horrible to each other ends up jaded? Yer right, that is a head scratcher.”

She huffed, frustrated Mulch wasn’t understanding, annoyed that she couldn’t express herself well because  _ she  _ still didn’t understand. “He kills people now, Mulch,” she whispered so passersby wouldn’t hear.

He blinked. “Like, as a job?”

Holly leaned back, staring up at the flickering bar lights. “No, he’s still doing his Robin Hood thing as far as I can tell. But he’s decided some people aren’t ‘good’ enough to live.”

“So he shares the sentiment of every fairy under the earth.”

“That’s not it. I’m worried--” she ran a hand through her cropped hair “-- I’m worried he’ll keep slipping, and one day he won’t be ‘good’ enough for his own standards.”

“Look, Holly,” Mulch said, steepling his large, hairy fingers over his knees. “I worry about the kid too. I know what it’s like to go straight after a life of crime: you feel like you’re an imposter in the world of good people, you feel the need to prove yourself. And then there’s the constant fear of backsliding…” He shook his head with a sad smile. “Artemis is playing a dangerous game. He’s staying in that world, but to do good this time. His morality puts him at a disadvantage.”

“I get that,” Holly said, “but he doesn’t need to be in that world at all! He’s made huge advancements in ecological science, he was making the world a better place for humans  _ and  _ fairies. The dangerous stuff, that’s our department. So why--” she sat up straight as a realization hit her. “No, that can’t be it, he can’t be that  _ normal _ .”

_ But he said it himself, didn’t he? _

“What do you mean?” Mulch asked, following her as she stood.

“I need to get to a meeting,” she said, dazed.

“What do you mean, normal?” the dwarf insisted, stopping short as Holly boarded the train. “Holly!”

The doors slid shut.

Commander Vinyaya met Holly at the security gate to Section 8. The commander had only recently returned from her own clandestine mission, which had begun decades ago at the North Pole. It had been so classified only a couple Section 8 agents knew of the mission, and she had to fake her own death to begin it. Turnball Root’s zeppelin had come at just the right time.

Now the silver-haired elf grinned the wide-mouthed grin of a proud mom, even though she’d been a single, career-oriented woman her whole life.

“Welcome back to the land of the sane!” she greeted, clapping the younger elf on the shoulder. “I think the whole LEP collectively fainted from relief when you came back online. Especially after all the bio bombs went off.”

Holly ran a tired hand through her hair. “Yeah, it was a close call. But we managed to get, um, get out in time.”

“Get out?” Vinyaya repeated. “What do you mean? Bio bombs went off all over the world.”

The blood drained from Holly’s face. “What?”

Vinyaya either didn’t notice Holly’s distress, or ignored it. “According to our intel, ninety percent of them were in the bunkers of gangs and mafias. But you want to know the weirdest thing?”

Holly shook her head, not trusting her voice. Had Artemis known?

“All of the bio bomb locations were abandoned, some of them private residences or gang hangouts.” Vinyaya’s lips curled like a Cheshire cat. “What are the odds?”

The explosive laugh that escaped Holly’s mouth held all the pent-up emotions she’d felt over the past couple days. “Yes,” she gasped, tears in her eyes. “What are the odds?”

When she recovered from her doubled-over position, her posture was all business.

“I have something to discuss with you, commander. Something which, for the sake of the LEP and the People, can’t leave your office.”

Vinyaya also sobered. “Right this way, Commodore.”

Artemis sat on his back patio, his book and tea untouched. He couldn’t focus on reading. There was still so much to do in the case of the treacherous Councilmember, but he couldn’t concentrate on his schemes, either. His mind kept looping back to his last conversations with Holly, how the elf had only been back in his life a few days, and already his moral compass was spinning in confused circles.

He’d always known why she stayed away, of course. Butler had explained it all in a letter left with his will. The old bodyguard had asked her not to involve Artemis in any more dangerous adventures, but encouraged them to remain friends.

‘I know you’ll be angry with me for this,’ Butler had written. ‘But please, Artemis. Take care of yourself like I took care. Love yourself as we love you. I know you’d say we’re all stardust, none of us is special, but you’re the sparkliest star to me. Don’t laugh. I’m old.’ 

Artemis did laugh now, remembering, but at the time he had been annoyed with his oldest friend. He’d hoped Holly would ignore Butler’s request in favor of the obvious advantages to the LEP. But she hadn’t. Not only did she disclude him from LEP cases, but her social calls also decreased (possibly because he would enquire about her cases). Bitter, Artemis had returned the favor, and soon their lives were completely separate.

He’d thought he was being independent. He thought missing her was a weakness. What a fool he was.

He sighed, slouching in his chair in a way he’d grown fond of in recent years.

Still, it was probably for the best. They operated so differently now.

Artemis stood, stretched his back until it cracked, then picked up his cold tea and unopened book before retreating back into the house. The sun was lowering below the horizon, and he watched it set through the kitchen window as he sorrowfully dumped his tea into the sink.

Suddenly, a new red object appeared in the window, framed by the eaves covering the west side of the house. Artemis gave out an ineloquent squawk.

Holly grinned, then tapped on the glass. “Let me in?”

He pointed to the front of the house, then tripped over an end table in his mad dash to open the door.

“What are you doing here?” he panted. He blinked. “And what is  _ that _ ?”

“What, Mud Man, you’ve never seen luggage before?”

“ _ Your  _ luggage?” he clarified, pivoting as she strutted past him into the front room.

She faced him, leaning on her luggage which was almost as tall as she was. “I thought you were a genius.”

“I’m questioning everything at the moment,” he muttered. “Holly, what is going on?”

Holly sighed. She’d hoped to at least get unpacked before explaining. “Long story short, Section Eight sent me to protect you. I told Vinyaya about the corrupt Councilmember--”

He frowned. “You shouldn’t--”

“--And since you and I were both at Cardines’s compound, and we know the traitor knows we were there,” she continued, waving off his interruption, “we’ve both got targets on our backs. Being aboveground in a house I’m guessing is off the grid is safer for me, while having a trained fairy officer around is safer for you. Simple.”

“Perhaps from Vinyaya’s perspective,” Artemis said, shaking a finger at her, “but two days ago you were saying we can’t be around each other. What changed?”

Holly’s grin faded, and her bi-colored eyes fixed him with a determined glare. “Nothing has changed. You are a different person now, and have a lot of issues that, quite frankly, you should see someone about.”

“I’ll have to look into therapists for wanted criminals--”

She held up a hand to stop his quip. “Your core values, though, haven’t changed. Such as the importance of friendship and your desire to do good. You’ve lost too many friends, I won’t be another one.” She clapped once, her tone changing from serene to confident. “So here’s the deal. Though I am here to protect you, I won’t die for you. And you, obviously, won’t die for me.” She smirked again. “Frond knows your life is short enough as it is.”

“If I’m protecting you and you’re protecting me,” he said, pretending the logic had stumped him, “then what happens when we’re both in danger? There could be collateral damage.”

She rolled her luggage away from him and into the guest room. He trailed behind, subconsciously making notes on how to modify the living space to a fairy’s dimensions.

She looked over her shoulder at him and grinned, as if she guessed what he was doing. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

“That sounds much more vague than your aforementioned ‘no violence’ rule.”

“What can I say?” She hefted the huge case onto the bed. “I believe in us.”

He watched while she transplanted her clothing into the dresser, his time-hardened gruffness fighting it out with the unnamed warm tingling feeling travelling over his arms and chest. Before he gave into it, there was one more thing he had to know.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Which one?” She arranged her hair care products next to a framed photo of her parents on the desk.

“What are you doing here?” he repeated. Before she could protest-- she  _ had  _ already answered that question-- he continued. “Are you only here because Vinyaya sent you?”

Holly paused in her unpacking. Without a word, she climbed onto the desk and motioned Artemis to approach. He did, and she clutched his shoulders and looked him intently in the eyes, like a crunchball coach confiding the team plays to his front pointman.

“I’m here because I’m your friend, Artemis,” she said. “You’ve done well at going it alone, even if I don’t agree with everything you’ve done. You’ve done well at being alone, but you’re also lonely. You could have solved any crime, helped any people, but you chose the fairies because it helped you stay connected to your friends.” She brought her hands up to his face, tracing the lines around his eyes with her thumbs. “I’m sorry, Artemis. I’m sorry for leaving my best friend alone. I’m sorry for not noticing your loneliness sooner. But I’m also here because I’ve been lonely, too.” She bumped his forehead with her own. “I’ll never say this again, but Haven is boring without you.”

Artemis laughed, though his eyes shone.

“I like being around you. I like spending time with you. I’m sorry if I made you think that wasn’t true.”

“I forgive you.” He leaned into her hands. “And I’m sorry for the same.”

They both smiled at each other, enjoying the sensation of years of hurt and tension melting away. Holly was the first to break the silence.

“Enough apologizing!” she declared, slapping Artemis’s cheeks gently with both hands before hopping off the desk. “We have work to do.”

The warmth in his chest rose into his head, imbuing his wrinkled face with new life. He recognized the feeling now. It felt like… coming home. “Yes,” he said with a genuine grin. “To work.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading my entry into the Artemis Fowl Big Bang 2021! It was nice to finally chase out this plot bunny. I'm not sure if I'll ever continue this plot, but it might be fun to revisit in the future. I definitely enjoy writing Old Artemis. :3 Crotchety old man.


End file.
